shortbooksBritain and America have a new word to describe their relationship: ‘essential’ has now been replaced by ‘special’. Justin Webb would prefer all adjectives to be abandoned in an effort to tell the real story.
Notes on Them & Us is a wry account of the transatlantic friendship as it actually exists today – how Americans see us, how we Brits see them – and Webb, presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme and formerly the BBC’s North American editor for eight years, is perfectly placed to comment.
An amusing, myth-breaking, unflinchingly honest read, this is not an attack on either the English or the Americans. Webb concludes that there is a fault line in the long-standing marriage between these two great nations, a cultural divide that separates us. And he argues that recognising this divide, even celebrating it, is the key to a rich future collaboration.